Man Charged In Fatal Mounds View Stabbing

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 51-year-old man is charged with two counts of second-degree murder after police say he fatally stabbed a man with a pair of scissors. Stephen Edward Gooler, of Minneapolis, said he was “blacked out” and doesn’t remember anything.

Police were called to an apartment building on the 7700 block of Silver Lake Road Northwest in Mounds View, Minn. on June 20 on a report of a man who had been stabbed. Upon arrival, police found a naked man, later identified as Gooler, unresponsive laying on the grass outside the building.

Gooler eventually told officers he fell from the balcony of a third floor apartment.

When officers entered the apartment building on the third floor, the saw a large amount of blood on the walls, carpet and ceiling. They eventually found the victim, naked, on his back and covered in blood outside apartment 31. The victim was dead on arrival.

Officers entered the victim’s apartment and found more blood, plus a bloody knife and bloody scissors on the floor of the living room.

A witness told police the victim came to their apartment yelling, “Help, help, he stabbed me” and “Help, I’m dying.” The witness said she called 911 after she saw blood spurting out of his neck and shoulder. The witness said she also saw Gooler run behind the victim and into the apartment, yelling, “He stabbed me first.”

Gooler was sent to Regions Hospital for his injuries — three fractured vertebrae and some bleeding on his brain — from the fall from the third floor apartment.

Gooler told investigators he met the victim on a gay male phone chat line called MegaMates. He said they agreed to meet in person for the first time on June 17. They then agreed to meet again on June 20 at the victim’s apartment.

Gooler told police they were drinking vodka and hanging out but that he “blacked out” and doesn’t remember the rest of the evening.

He then said, “If there was a scuffle, it was not serious because we like each other.”

At this point, investigators told Gooler the victim was dead and at first he didn’t react, but then attempted to cry “without success,” according to the complaint.

He then stated, “I can’t believe that I stabbed him.”

Gooler said again that he does not remember anything. He told police in 1988 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for brandishing a knife at someone when he was in a “blacked out” state.

The Ramsey County Medical Examiner said the likely weapon used to kill the victim was a scissors and that the scissors cut an artery and then pierced the victim’s right lung.